on of the state to the cruel worship of the idols
of her native land; and this she accomplished, although he had been
religiously educated, and was the son of an eminently good man. Little
did it affect her, that a highly-distinguished prophet of God wrote a
letter to the king her husband, foretelling the evils that should befall
himself, his family, and his kingdom, and that this prophecy had been
literally fulfilled. Little did it humble her proud spirit, that by the
common consent, her degenerate husband, who, through _her_ persuasions
and example, had been led away from the path of duty, was judged
unworthy to be interred within the sepulchres of his ancestors, and was
buried apart. She had too much of her mother within her to be daunted by
such trifles as these; for both of her parents had acquired an eminence
in wickedness which have made their names by-words: but her mother's
especially is considered almost a synonym for every thing that is
unlovely in woman.

After her husband's death, her son succeeded to the throne, and he also
did wickedly, for he had been educated under his mother's eyes, trod in
her footsteps, and courted the society of her connections. And this was
the cause of his death; for while paying a visit at the court of his
uncle, her brother, they both were killed together in a successful
insurrection. And now, if ever, if any thing of the woman was left in
her nature, the queen's heart would be softened and humbled: at one fell
swoop, death had carried off her only son, her brother, and every member
of her father's house; she only was left, of all that proud and numerous
family. Her aged mother, aged, but not venerable, although now a
great-grandmother, had met her fate in a characteristic manner.
Determined, if she must die, to do so like a queen, she had put on her
royal robes, and adorned herself with jewels, and caused her withered
face, upon which every evil passion had left its mark, to be painted
into some semblance of youth and beauty. Her eyelids were stained with
the dark antimony still used in the East, to restore, if possible, the
former brilliant softness to eyes of hard, blazing, wicked blackness.
Gazing from an upper window of the palace upon the usurper, as he drove
into the courtyard, the fearless woman, resolved to show her spirit to
the last, railed upon him, and quoted a notable instance from history of
one who, like him, had been a successful rebel, but had reigned for only